Twitter users have expressed their distaste for the renaming of the London Eye as the EDF Energy London Eye following sponsorship from the energy company.

Fireworks light up the EDF Energy London Eye on New Year's Eve: The new sponsorship money will go towards a refurbishment of the wheel's pods. (Ian Nicholson/PA)

Twitter users emphatically rejected the new name for the iconic wheel in no uncertain terms.

MatthewGidley tweeted: 'The London Eye is being given a new name. "EDF Energy London Eye". Has a nice ring to it. Fetch my pistol?'

While paulmcgarryuk mused: 'London Eye to be renamed EDF Energy London Eye. Next up is "the Coca Cola Buckingham Palace" or "the Irn Bru Houses of Parliament."'

This will be the fourth name in 11 years for the London ride, which was originally called the Millenium Wheel.

French-owned gas and electricity company EDF have signed a three-year sponsorship deal thought to be worth about £8 million, the London Eye is used by 3.5 million tourists each year.

Some Twitter users pointed out however that whatever the wheel's official name Londoners are free to call it what they like.

ItsPaulWallace said: 'People who are up in arms about the London Eye being renamed the EDF Energy London Eye do know they can call it anything they want, right?', with manicvic adding: 'I'm still going to call it the big Ferris Wheel in London.'

After glory in the Falklands, HMS Invincible could end its days as a floating NIGHTCLUB in China

A Chinese restaurant chain owner has launched an audacious bid to buy the legendary Falklands warship HMS Invincible - and convert it into a nightclub.

Kin Bong Lam, chairman of the Wing Wah empire, has submitted a £5million bid to the Ministry of Defence for the iconic vessel, which helped to win the Falklands War against Argentina in 1982.

Mr Lam wants to ship the carrier China and convert it into a nightclub or even a restaurant.

The light aircraft carrier, a former flagship of the British fleet, has fallen on hard times in recent years and is currently languishing in Portsmouth's dockyard with her engines stripped out and propellers lying on deck.

Women still want to marry men who are better educated and earn more money than them, a report finds today.

The idea that women dislike being financially dependent on men is a myth, with more choosing to “marry up” now than did so in the 1940s, according to Dr Catherine Hakim from the London School of Economics.

After decades of gender equality campaigning many women now find it hard to admit that they want to be a housewife more than they want a successful career of their own, she said.

The study comes after the Coalition announced a series of measures intended to narrow the pay gap between men and women.

Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat equalities minister, said large companies could be forced to declare how much more they pay men and announced that firms would be able to use “positive action” to recruit new staff from under-represented groups for the first time.

However, Dr Hakim criticised David Cameron for backing the idea of quotas to ensure that more women gain seats on the boards of leading companies. Men dominate top positions because many women simply do not want long careers in business, she said.

Despite 40 years of reforms to promote gender equality at work, a woman’s financial dependence on a man “has lost none of its attractions”, she said.

In a 52-page report published by the Centre for Policy Studies think tank, Dr Hakim continued: “Women’s aspiration to marry up, if they can, to a man who is better-educated and higher-earning, persists in most European countries.

“Women thereby continue to use marriage as an alternative or supplement to their employment careers.”

Dr Hakim’s research drew on an extensive review of existing studies from around the world, census data, and national surveys conducted in Britain and Spain.

An analysis of figures for Britain shows that in 1949, 20 per cent of women married husbands with significantly higher levels of education than their own.

By the late 1990s, the proportion of women who were “marrying up” had almost doubled to 38 per cent. Similar patterns are seen across much of Europe, the US and Australia.

The widely promoted goal of “symmetrical family roles”, with men and women sharing child-care, housework and employment, is popular among a highly educated, professional elite. But it is “not the ideal sought by most couples”, the report said.

“It is thus not surprising that wives generally earn less than their husbands, and that most couples rationally decide that it makes sense for her to take on the larger share of childcare, and use most or all the parental leave allowance.”

Dr Hakim said many women did not want to “admit” that they were looking for a higher earning partner. They even keep the fact secret from the men they are dating, she said.

“It has become impossible to say ‘I wouldn’t mind being a housewife,’” she said. “It is so politically incorrect that a lot of women don’t want to admit it.”

The report said that the “war” for equal opportunities between men and women was now over in the UK.

The gap in pay between the two sexes has fallen from about 30% in the 1970s to as low as 10% today. Women do now have an equal opportunity to find work, but choose different priorities for their lives.

The report said it was wrong for politicians to expect that equal opportunities would result in equal numbers of women as men in particular jobs.

Strewth, this weather's totally batty! It's not only the humans who have lost their homes in the Australian floods

Torrential rain has brought chaos to Australia, and not just to the humans who live there.

Australian Bat Clinic and Wildlife Trauma Centre director Trish Wimberley and her carers have helped save 130 orphaned bats on the Gold Coast in past weeks.

They saved 350 young bats during the 2008 storm season but this year think there's more going on than just wild weather.

Baby bats at the Bat Clinic in Advancetown, which has helped at least 130 baby bats after the wet weather

Worker Wendy Wimberley lovingly tends to baby bats at the Bat Clinic, where patient numbers are up this year

Carers have visited several bat 'camps' on the coast in recent weeks to find four-week-old babies on the ground covered in maggots and fly eggs.

Trish said: 'They're coming down to feed on the ground. That makes them vulnerable. It's not a natural occurrence and shows there is trouble in the environment.

'Bats are a barometer to what is going on in the environment. They're our canaries down the coal mine'.

The surviving youngsters will be bottle fed and kept either hanging on clothes lines or in special intensive care units until they are ready to fly again in about four weeks.

The winged mammals are bottle fed, wrapped up and hung on clotheslines until they are well enough to be released

Meanwhile on Friday residents of northeast Australia returned to homes caked in sludge and nervously watched the skies for more rain while waiting for swollen rivers to recede.

The worst appeared to have passed from flooding that covered an area the size of France and Germany in murky brown water for longer than a week, but torrents still posed dangers in partly-submerged towns in Queensland state and progress on assessing damage and rebuilding was slow.

On Friday, police banned boats from the swollen river coursing through the city of Rockhampton that is expected to remain near its peak for another 10 days.

The scope of the damage is not yet known, and fully repairing all of the infrastructure washed away or ruined could take years, the army general heading recovery efforts said.

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So much news today is dull, depressing, controversial. It's almost impossible to watch news without hearing story after story of war, terror, killing, destruction, government, corruption, etc. I come across weird and wonderful news items as I scan the worlds press that put a smile on ones face or distract one from all the doom and gloom. These are the stories that will make up "The Quirky Globe". If you have any reactions to articles please leave a comment.... it may encourage debate. Pass this site on to your friends who are also fed up with mainstream news and become a follower. Enjoy and smile.